Thursday, September 29, 2016

Salvador Dalí was born on May 11, 1904 in a small town in
Barcelona, Spain known as Figueras. Dalí’s childhood was filled with private
education and fits of megalomania. In fact, Dalí’s power-fuelled and
extraordinarily violent infancy is now considered to be one of his primary inspirations.
By being hypersensitive to his surroundings during his formative years, Dalí learned
to transform the extremities—his terrors, his ecstasies, his world—into art. His Spanish heritage has also informed many of
his pieces. Oftentimes, the rocky ravines of Catalan country and the sandy gulf
of Rosas find their way into the background of Dalí’s paintings. Another
influential aspect of Dalí’s childhood was the death of his older brother,
another Salvador Dalí. At the age of five, Dalí established an internal
dichotomy: he claimed he was the reincarnation of his brother; and with two
Salvador Dalí’s came two, disparate sources of influence. In this way, even at
an early age, Dalí recognized the significant impact that his surroundings would
continue to have on both him and his artwork.

Dalí’s paintings can fit into various stylistic moulds, including
Impressionism, Pointillism, Futurism, Hyperrealism, Abstractionism, and predominantly,
Surrealism. Dalí dabbled in each of these various visual styles of art as a
student at the Real Academia de Bellas Artes in Madrid in 1922. The transition
into this formal artistic education shortly followed the death of his mother, Felipa
Domenech Ferrés. After leaving art school and Madrid, several years passed as Dalí
fine-tuned his ability to put his paranoiac and extreme visions onto the canvas.
Another external influence that held great importance in shaping Dalí’s work was
fellow artist, Giorgio de Chirico. De Chirico made a large surrealist impression
on Dalí as he pioneered the use of cavernous perspective, enigmatic shadows, and
evocative imagery—each of which are now symbols of Dalí. One such painting of Dalí’s
that alludes to de Chirico is his 1927 oil on wood panel painting, Apparatus and Hand.

Apparatus and HandSalvador DalíOil on Wood1927

In Apparatus and Hand, Dalí’s sharp shadowing mirrors that of de
Chirico. He thoughtfully positions the shadows to the left of their corresponding
objects, and furthermore, the lines with which he creates these shadows are piquantly
acute. Although such avant-garde and phantasmagorical imagery is not all that Dalí
has created as an artist, I have chosen Dalí precisely for his dream-like and mystifying
technique.

As a psychology major, I have taken
a particular interest in Dalí’s musings on Sigmund Freud. As a conducer of
surrealist art, Dalí recognized that not every stroke or choppy procession of objects
was a conscious decision. In fact, Dalí viewed his art as a twofold,
Freudian-like process: an initial outpour of his subconscious followed by subsequent
conscious reasoning and delusions with which to finish the work. Furthermore, Dalíhas even claimed that he himself is the
most surprised by what ends up on a canvas, further demonstrating the supposed critical
potency that his subconscious has on his art. Sleep, a piece created by Dalí in 1937 is an oil painting on canvas
that seemingly directly corresponded with his piqued interest in the father of psychoanalysis.

SleepSalvador DalíOil on Canvas1937

According to Dalí, “in order for
sleep to be possible, a whole system of crutches in psychic equilibrium is
essential. If only one were missing, one would wake and above all the little
boat would disappear immediately” (Barnes, 2009). Dalí’s Sleep is itself a direct manifestation of this concept—a small boat
can be discerned as emerging from the ocean’s horizon and the mountainous face is
held upright, and thus lulled into sleep, by way of strategically placed stilts.
From this, it is clear that Dalí’s Sleep
is influenced by his surroundings and his unconscious ruminations. Moreover, in
accordance with one of Freud’s many theories surrounding sleep, Dalí’s Sleep references the unconscious manifestations
(perhaps unconscious needs or desires) that ultimately float into one’s subconscious
during slumber as if on a tiny, elusive boat, that at any moment, can disappear
with consciousness or wake.

Another one of Dalí’s pieces that
particularly intrigued me and ultimately prompted my decision to choose Dalí
for this project is an oil on canvas painting created in 1944. The piece is named
Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee
and features his primary muse (his wife Gala), arachnid-legged elephants, veracious
cannibalistic tigers, a bursting pomegranate, a miniscule bumble bee, a gun,
and more.

Dream Caused by the Flight of a BeeSalvador DalíOil on Canvas1944

Dream
Caused by the Flight of a Bee is based on a dream that his wife had one
night of a bee buzzing around a pomegranate fruit. While both the fruit and the
bee make it into Dalí’s work, the primary focus of the image is his wife’s
naked body, the long-legged water-walking elephant, and the fish-tiger compilation.
Like many of Dalí’s surrealist pieces, this painting features impossibly perplexing
elements of reality that when combined, transport the viewer into a dream-like,
fantastical alternate universe. Additionally, I perceived Freudian influences on
this painting as well because each seemingly unconnected element suggests that
the unconscious must be the glue piecing them all together. While I am unable
to make sense of each and every element of this painting (beyond perhaps the
Port Lligart backdrop seemingly stemming from Dalí’s Spanish heritage and his
naked wife as a carnal muse), such inscrutable characteristics is what draws me
to Dalí’s work in the first place. When viewing a Salvador Dalí piece, onlookers
are transported from their immediate reality into a dream-like world, where
reason is optional and possibilities are endless.

Works Cited

Barnes,
Rachel. Salvador Dali. London: Quercus, 2009. Print.

Grenier,
Catherine, and David Radzinowicz. Salvador Dalí: The Making of an Artist.
Paris: Flammarion, 2012. Print.

Soby,
James Thrall. Salvador Dali. New York: Museum of Modern Art New York, 1946.
Print.

While searching through Lilly
Library, I was immediately struck by the fantastic colors and whimsical quality in
the paintings of Georgia O’Keeffe. Georgia attended the Art Institute of
Chicago in 1905. She then spent another year at the Art student’s league in New
York. There she studied under William chase. She went relatively undiscovered
until 1916 when an art collector and photographer named Alfred Stieglitz
decided to display her work in his New York gallery. They were eventually
married and after he died she permanently moved to New Mexico where much of her
inspiration came from. Many of her works display the landscapes, skills, and
flowers in a way that focuses on the emotional essence in her efforts to create
states of feeling. (O’keeffe)

When Georgia went to
Chicago, one of her teachers was Alon Bement . His teaching style was a bit unconventional
but Georgia felt very inspired by him. He didn’t want students to just copy
nature; he wanted them to use geometric shapes to learn the principles of
design. He also heavily stressed the concept of the line. Georgia felt that this method had actually helped maintain her individualism. Abstraction IX shows how Bement’s methods
allowed O’Keeffe to convey a simple impression of beauty just by line
emphasis(Souter, 2011).

Although O'keefe originally spent most of her summers in Texas, her love with Alfred convinced her to
stay in New York where they could begin their relationship. Her heightened sexuality and
ability to create can be seen in the works she produced within the first few
months of being with Alfred. She began using bright pastel tones in the soft
curved lines in her work which many writers have identified as strong sexual overtones.
The picture below is called Music- Pink and Blue I was done in 1919, and
beautifully displays these influences(Souter, 2011)

In 1949, O’Keeffe permanently moved to new Mexico and spend
most of her days between Ghost Rank and Abiquiú. In her paintings she used a
different brush for each color, which added to the preserved intensity of the
shades. Her work during this time was a cross between abstraction, realism, and
surrealism. She claimed that “nothing is less real than realism; details are
confusing.” She would often draw a series of a subject, searching for the
perfect expression of feelings. She had a passion for the landscape of New Mexico
and the quiet pleasure she found in the great landscapes really show in My
Backyard, 1937(Souter, 2011)

Thursday, September 22, 2016

Conveniently for me, we were overstaffed at Lilly Library last night during my shift. This meant there weren't even enough chairs at the front desk for me to sit in. So, when I disappeared for a bit, it wasn't an issue. I left the desk and browsed the NC labeled stacks for an artist to do this blog post on. I wanted to learn something new, so I intentionally avoided the names of artists I either knew or thought sounded familiar. I strolled through the stacks, pulling out books, flipping through them a bit, and placing them back on the shelves. This went on until I found a book with a drawing form that I've never given any thought to : modern sculpture. Of course I knew modern sculpture existed, but I had never see the drawn plans for such abstract forms. As I flipped through the book, I found it intriguing the way the drawing compositions were translated in the sculptures themselves ( which were included in photographs.) I then reread the spine of the book, The Drawings of Barbara Hepworth, took the book, as well as its neighboring booksimply entitled Barbara Hepworth.

According to that first book, Hepworth was "the greatest female sculptor in the History of Western art." Quite the introduction. But, it is true that in the twentieth century she was incredibly influential in the creation of British Modernism. She attended both the Leeds School of Art and the Royal College of Art, and went on to be aprolific producer of art in varying styles and medium. Yet, before these art schools, there were certainly factors in her life that would resurface in her later works. For example, her father was a surveyor. Between her father's drawings and a familiarity with math and numbers from childhood, her later works in the 1930s could have been founded in these earlier influences.

It is this work of the 1930s that I saw when I first scanned the pages of the book.

Her earliest drawings in the 1930s include 9 small sheets of studies. There are no known earlier sculpture drawings, so these nine are probably her first exploration of this genre. The following image includes one of those nine sketches, along with a sculpture she would make in the same year (1932.)

These two works are undoubtedly related, the sketch being called Form with Hole and the sculpture : Pierced Form. The drawing is simply pencil on paper, but is significant as it is one of Hepworth's "earliest almost-abstract drawings."

This drawing over the next decade evolved into the drawing for sculpture. In a quote, she explains "If I didn’t have to cook, washup, nurse children ad infinitum, I should carve, carve, carve. The proof of this is in the drawings. They are not just a way of amusing myself nor are they experimental probings -- they are my sculptures born in the disguise of two dimensions." The two images above present the sculpture in both 2d and 3d. The drawing is entitled Oval Form No.2, and was done in pencil and gouache in 1942. A year later, Oval Sculpture, was completed, and is believed to be partly inspired by earlier drawings such as the one shown.

In this drawing, there is an obvious emphasis on structure and geometry. It seems that the colored triangles are suspended by strings and curves reminiscent of the golden section. She explains such elements in the following quote "I used colour and strings …. the colour in the concavities plunged me into the depth of water, caves, or shadows deeper than the carved concavities themselves. The strings were the tension I felt between myself and the sea, the wind or the hills [author's emphasis]."

By the end of thisdecade (1940s) she had moved on from focusing solely on sculpture and onto a different subject of study now know as The Hospital Drawings. It is this subject that the other book, Barbara Hepworth, focused on. The picture below was completed in 1948 using oil and pencil and is entitled The Child's Hand. When I first viewed the image, I perceived the work and technique of her sculpture drawings. The same bold curves can be seen in the sleeves of the surgeons, and triangles in their masks. My perceptions were confirmed in her own words : "I wanted to convey my feelings about the amazing structure of the inanimate hand and arm."